Trope-ing update

Snapped moments ago from Amazon: Number 1 New Release in general technology and reference. Gotta admit, I like the sound of that.

(And incidentally, this Kindle edition of Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science Behind the Fiction is on sale till the release date, April 30. The hardback edition will also be out that day.) 

Looking back

For today's post, some physics (including astrophysics) retrospectives ....

And ... it's beautiful

My first interest in any kind of science -- likely before I knew the word science -- was with astronomy. Who among us wasn't fascinated at a young age with the fascinating show that is the night sky? And so (with added interest because of the University of Chicago connection), I was sad to read that "Yerkes Observatory is closing its doors." Yerkes is historic both for the uniqueness of its primary instrument -- a 40-inch refracting telescope -- and the many prominent astronomers who at one time or another worked there. Edwin Hubble. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Gerard Kuiper. Carl Sagan.

Looking a lot further back, consider an inference drawn from orbital peculiarities of a set of Oort Cloud objects. To wit: "An alien star sideswiped our solar system and sent comets reeling, scientists say."

Of space ... and spaciness

Updated March 24, 2018 (at the end of this post)

The Moon remains the the high-water mark of in-person human exploration. (That may someday change -- thank you, Elon Musk -- but for now, it is what it is.)

Mmmm. Dough ... nut.

One of the things I find most fascinating about that too-long-since-visited neighbor is how little we know about it. The debate continues about how the Moon first came to be. While I find the prevailing Theia/Giant-Impact Hypothesis qualitatively plausible -- it's not like I've done the math -- that theory has its share of loose ends and doubters. So I was fascinated to read this recent speculation: "Freaky Theory Offers Totally New Explanation of the Moon’s Origin." (Perhaps it has something to do with my love of doughnuts. Really.)

Not *exactly* random ...

While the writing biz has kept me unusually busy of late, a rather eclectic bunch of stuff  -- all somehow germane to SF and Nonsense -- has  been catching my eye. A few highlights from among those are the basis of today's post.

My writing appears often in Analog magazine: in fiction, science articles, and even guest editorials. Because my preferred sub-genre is (I hate the term, but love the concept) hard SF, Analog is my favorite among the zines. And so, I was happy to make this discovery -- Analog now has an active FB presence.

High-tech tulip bulbs?

Admittedly, the upcoming item wasn't an especially recent encounter -- but the topic remains as timely as when I bookmarked the related article in December.

As clever and useful as I find blockchain technology (in essence, a robust and distributed form of computerized record-keeping), I remain more than a little skeptical about using that tech to underpin a non-governmental currency. Bitcoin, of course, is the poster child for blockchain-based "currency" (aka, cryptocurrency). This three-month-old article remains one of the best pieces I've found on the topic: "Five myths about bitcoin: No, the currency isn’t beyond the reach of the law, and it won’t replace cash."

So what else is timely(er) and eclectic?

Tiptoe, through the Trope-lets, ...

In my most recent post, "Trope-ing closer to release :-), I reported that I'd received -- and would disappear for awhile into a close reading of -- copy edits of Trope-ing the Light Fantastic (subtitled, The Science Behind the Fiction).

Inching closer :-)

I've reemerged -- after a weekend and a day of reading and commenting -- from that task. So exciting! Which is not to say you can yet rush out to order a copy. (I wish.) But we are closer. Yay, team!

Part of the time I was involved in that, my first and favorite reader, aka my wife, Ruth, was reading the completed first draft of my next novel: Deja Doomed. Ruth had, as always, many helpful suggestions. Soon I'll turn to incorporating those into an updated draft.

In other writing news, I learned that Analog is accepting Clockwork Cataclysm, my latest short story. No word yet as to its pub date.

Mine was the cover story

And speaking of appearances in Analog, in 2017 the 'zine published a novelette and two short stories of mine. I was tickled to learn that the novelette and one of the shorts are finalists in the zine's reader poll for last year. (Here's the announcement in Locus: "2017 Analog AnLab Awards Finalists.") On the Analog website, you can read many of the finalists, my stories included.

Trope-ing closer to release :-)

Woohoo! I just received copy edits for Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science Behind the Fiction.

The draft cover

Why the enthusiasm? (Hint: it's not because I enjoy proofreading.) Copy edits in hand means the book is that much closer to release :-)

But today's incoming also means that I've got ~100K words to give a close, final read-through -- ASAP. Hence: you've just seen about all I expect to get posted this week.

For the back story of Trope-ing, check out the ironically titled "From mighty oak trees, little acorns grow."

What the %^&$#!! NOW?

The incompetence that is Yahoo continues its luge ride to oblivion (an update to last month's frustrated post, "What the &$#!! is wrong with Yahoo?"). A set of new failings:

Why does my Yahoo home page lose the ability, from time to time, to display RSS feeds? Given that the suddenly unavailable sources are as disparate as Fortune magazine, Yahoo's own financial service, and PCworld, I have to believe the problem is Yahoo's.

Why has my Yahoo home page spontaneously switched from its three-column, years-old formatting to two columns? (It's worse than that, but the details of the uninvited formatting changes aren't important to my point.) And why does the "Edit Layout" button no longer operate, so that I can maybe undo the SNAFU?

Why do assorted Yahoo services suddenly decide I'm not logged in, but know better when I refresh the screen? 

Why do my Yahoo email filters only work sporadically?

Why, when I do a Yahoo Calendar edit selecting "this and future events" of a series, does the Save function not update this event?

The Kramer

You're doubtless wondering: why continue using Yahoo services at all? A fair question. Inertia, and the effort necessary to switch fully to Google-equivalent services (though I'm partway there, to be sure).

But to change completely? I don't see that happening. It's like the infamous The Kramer painting from Seinfeld (“He is a loathsome, offensive brute. Yet I can’t look away.”) IMO, it is hypnotically compelling to watch just how bad a once great company get become ....

That's heavy, man!

After yesterday's awesome launch -- and two-thirds recovery -- of the Falcon Heavy, what more is there for a technologist and  SF author to comment upon? Read on.

If you haven't yet had OD-ed on the coverage, check out "The best photos and videos of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch."

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is highly motivated to make humanity a multi-planetary species by colonizing Mars. (Yesterday's mission seems to have gone a bit off course: "Elon Musk’s Tesla overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to the asteroid belt.") To which end (once these little navigational glitches are worked out), this recent news is very encouraging: " 'A fantastic find': Mars hides thick sheets of ice just below the surface."

Color-enhanced: blue = ice.

How much ice? Check the photo at left.

And equally awesome, IMO, is this item that has been overshadowed by the aforementioned stories: "LISA Pathfinder, the gravitational wave space mission, declared a success: European Space Agency reports final results of proof-of-concept mission, ahead the most ambitious science experiment ever attempted."

LISA stands for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. I've several times posted enthusiastically about the wonderful LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), its 2015 discovery of gravitational waves, and a few of its event detections. LIGO is an L-shaped instrument about four kilometers on a side. LISA Pathfinder was the proof-of-concept mission for an eventual L-shaped instrument 2.5 million kilometers on a side. LISA will offer sensitivity, and visibility into astronomical phenomena, far beyond anything LIGO -- or any Earth-based instrument -- can approach.

Life imitates art

Part of what spoke to me about the progress toward LISA is this quote: "... once the triangle of satellites is eventually up and running, it will be able to detect very early signs of a black hole merger, weeks before the eventual collision." In my 2016 novel Dark Secret, the (fictional) space-based Einstein Gravitational Wave Observatory kicks off the story by detecting the signs of an imminent neutron-star merger. That detection forewarns of a gamma-ray burst that will obliterate life in our solar system. (Post-wise, here's a second coincidence: Dark Secret opens on recently colonized Mars.)

Alas, we won't see LISA until, at the earliest, 2034. That's okay. LIGO was decades in coming, too (see Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space).